Layers Of Gray
by Kim
We waited in the darkness of the woods, beyond the castle's protection,
for some unfortunate soul wandering at night: A lone soldier or
drunken knight straggling back to barracks after a tavern brawl,
or a young scullery wench creeping back to her quarters after
a lusty interlude. On desperate winter nights, we waited for an
old man or woman journeying down the twisted rutted road, or perhaps
a weary beggar. A spring night, under a full moon, warm and bright,
such as tonight, was always most promising. We waited silently.
We learned long, long ago to read each other's thoughts, and
could engage in deep discussion although our vigil remained silent.
I enjoyed these times the most. If we sifted through the centuries
of faded memory, we could sometimes remember similar talks when
we were mortal. We always did enjoy the matching of wits in our
heated exchanges. Of course the memory is vague, diluted, as if
covered by layers of gray. We call it the vampire curse, this
disassociation from our once fleeting mortality, meant to insure
we will no longer yearn for that long ago time. We both agree
it has had the opposite effect on us. Therein lies the true curse.
His hearing is keener than mine. Tonight was no exception. Hearing
the traveler coming first, he told me silently, touching me in
excitement. I can see his cold fingers in the bluish moonlight:
pale, lifeless. Gray. My heart remembers what it was like to be
touched by his fingers once warm and smooth. My heart also remembers
what it was like to weep.
Listening, I hear the man's firm footsteps, long before the stones
and rocks grind their chorus softly underfoot. I feel his breathing
reverberate through my veins until his breath comes to my hearing.
Soft, even, breaths, sweetly exhaled. He is not inebriated. I
feel the stirrings of pleasure in my dormant loins. I prefer them
sober, without libation to change the taste of the soul. The soul.
The soul. A thought, a memory flows over me like the night air.
I am kneeling once again in the cool earth before the carved stone.
The words, having long ago escaped my tongue, echo silently in
my empty heart. I would give my soul....I would give my soul....
The mortal must sense the presence of us. I smell his fear, and
its pungent odor snaps me back to the present moment. Emotions
taste pure when blood is clean, not weakened by drink. I am stirred
by the pleasure of his fear. My favorite taste is fear. This appalls
me, yet even my conscience is wrapped in gray.
We follow him through the woods, imitating the sounds of animals
of the forest, spooking him, and he is walking faster now. Blood
is pumping, coursing through his strong body, matching in strength
the flow of my own desire. We swoop down on him, together, as
one, having long ago mastered the dance, pinning him to the ground.
He struggles, speaking desperately in that strange language forever
separated from our ears. But we understand. We always understand
in this moment. Death has a universal language. We ignore his
pleas of mercy even as our memory haunts us of that fateful moment,
which altered the history of us. I hear my own pleas, feel my
own struggle, feel the hot tingling sensation of sharpness pierce
my own neck as if it were once again yesterday. In this moment,
when my eyes have glassed over and appear translucent, like the
moon, when I am most horrific in my cursed existence, I love.
Feeling the course of this mortal's life ebb and flow, succumbing
to the power that I am, I love as he loves, I hate as he hates,
and if fate graces me this night, I die with honor, as he dies.
I give you this, my lover says silently to me, and lifts the
man's thrashing body to my mouth. I feel his hot skin brush across
my cool lips. I see the green of his eyes begging. I see his sad
acceptance and surrender. I see the collapse of the world and
my own final mortality in this moment. I sink slender deadly teeth
in and suck. The warmth washes over me like softly colored rain,
and at last I feel the heat seeping into my sleeping cells. Frozen
for eternity, they momentarily burst with the pleasurable boiling
from his body heat. He struggles once again, an honorable yet
futile effort, and I taste the resplendent surge of his valor.
I become his brave heart.
Still drinking, I close my eyes, and think of my beloved, knowing
what he sees. He sees me in pink, my eyes deep chocolate once
again, my hair spun gold in his darkness, my skin glowing with
effervescent life. My lips flush ruby red as blood warms my veins
and naked lust sweeps unabated across my once ashen, yet now golden
visage. He sees my breasts, scarlet tipped, quivering with desire,
alive again with the milk of life to nurse his needs, and the
deep auburn curls of my loins part in pleasure by my pale moonlit
fingers to bestow on him the warm musky scent of my fathomless
secrets. Perhaps he has a torturous visit of a memory, remembering
the pleasure of being deep inside me, both our bodies brimming
with life, our love surging through us in moans and gasps until
we are spent.
With my lusty full-bodied moan, the curse comes to completion.
He forgets momentarily that we are damned. As the ecstasy of feasting
washes over me, and my body is wracked in spasms of engorgement,
he orgasms with me in his mind, silently. I see him in a memory,
in pink, through layers of gray, his face swathed in mortal's
pleasure as his seed spills and slicks my hot thighs. I hear echoing
across the silent moors my vow to give him my soul as his teeth
sink tightly into me and he drinks my love for him. I do not open
my eyes. I don't want to see him pale, heathered, and gray. I
don't want to see his lifeless tears.
Kim
